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The number of Mexican immigrants entering California has dropped sharply in the past year or so, to the point that farmers are worried.

As the Desert Sun in Palm Springs reported, "California's $44 billion agricultural industry faces a worsening labor shortage as farm workers age, more return home to Mexico and fewer new migrants arrive to replace them." Agriculture remains one of California's largest economic sectors, and we doubt the farm labor shortage will lure many native-born Californians into the fields.

According to the Pew Hispanic Center, the decline in illegal immigration from its 2007 height is the largest drop seen in America since the Great Depression. Note the ironies. The American economy was still booming during most of 2007 and today still is recovering. During bounteous economic times, Americans might complain that "they keep coming," but people were streaming here from other lands because jobs were abundant. It was an indicator of a good economy.

The California economy, while improving, still faces challenges. And agriculture, one of the state's most significant industries — although it is hidden from the major population and political centers — struggles for a lack of workers. The real reasons for the reduced numbers of illegal immigrants are not mysterious: the U.S. economic downturn, toughened border enforcement, an improving Mexican economy and a horrific drug war that makes it more perilous for Mexicans to travel across their country. The Desert Sun also quoted a labor economist who noted that second-generation immigrants generally don't do farm work, which is why the U.S. has relied on a stream of new arrivals.

Labor is like any other market. There is a supply and a demand.

Government restrictions only distort market forces and lead to black markets. If Americans couldn't find work in the United States, and there were plenty of jobs in Mexico, we'd expect American workers to do whatever they could to get south of the border, regardless of Mexico's laws. That's just reality.

Now that immigration levels have subsided, there should be less emotion surrounding this issue. This is a great time for reform, and the guest-worker idea should be on the table, especially as California farmers struggle to harvest the crops that feed people around the globe.